The purpose of the EKTAN is to provide intellectual food for thought on business strategy, technology, and current events, primarily in the wireless area. I am also available for more in depth consulting assignment in the telecom space. I'm currently consulting on projects and subjects that include: iDEN and CDMA technology, Nextel International, Sprint Nextel (without revealing any non-public or proprietary information), Alcatel-Lucent, and Motorola, and wireless industry dynamics, metrics and trends.

Important Info

CREATIVE COMMONS NOTICE ________________________
Redistribution or reuse of this document, or any part of it, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA. Attribution must include the following three lines:
Copyright 2008 by Ed Ketchoyian
Some Rights Reserved under Creative Commons License
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Privacy Policy
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Privacy Policy:
Any personal information that I have about you, including your name, email addresses, contact info, will remain private. Period. An exception to this policy is if you explicitly authorize publication of your name and / or content in the EKTAN or the EKTAN Blog.
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NY Mets Facts or Trivia

George Herbert Walker, Jr., an uncle of President George W. Bush, was vice president and treasurer of the Mets from their founding through 1977.
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Answer to question below: Sid Fernandez.
What 16-game winner was relegated to bullpen duty by Manager Davey Johnson during the 1986 World Series?

April 28, 2008

THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS, 4/28/08

The last newsletter was published on March 28, 2008. This issue
contains four articles, one of which has been reprinted at seekingalpha.com. My author
biography and an index of articles is at: http://seekingalpha.com/author/ed-ketchoyian.
These are practically identical to the articles here at the EKTAN, but
at Seeking Alpha, there have been some very interesting comments. In the last month, my article on Dan Hesse was included in Wikinvest.

Although I didn't go to CTIA, I've spoken to a number of colleagues
who did. The impression I get from my limited and biased sample is
that the show this year was high on professional networking
opportunities, but that the wireless industry is lacking a focus on the
next big thing. Notwithstanding the buzz on the ongoing WiMAX vs. LTE
religious war, if you are an old school wireless pro from years past,
you'd be looking for major announcements that involved spectrum, major
infrastructure equipment deals that resulted in commitments of billions
of dollars for new or upgraded technology, a blockbuster partnership
deal deal, or maybe even an iPhone-type device announcement (iPhone
derivatives, such as an iPhone "killer" don't count). None of which
happened, leaving some of the colleagues questioning their own future
in the industry.

Sprint Nextel continues to look for partners to share the cost of the
WiMAX rollout, which will undoubtedly cost several billion dollars, but
still has no takers. Given the credit markets being what they are and,
for intents and purposes, a recession in place, major deals that might
have been possible six months ago, seem like longer shots now. The
prospect of Sprint spinning off WiMAX completely to Clearwire or iDEN
or being taken over outright, given the intrinsic value of Sprint's
spectrum holdings alone, may not happen now in the short term, due to
macroeconomic conditions. This situation may end up being a blessing
in disguise for CEO Dan Hesse and any Sprint Nextel partisans who wish
for the company to remain independent; new management gets some
breathing room to turn around the company. Short of transplanting
headquarters from Kansas to a location where leadership actually has to
care about employee satisfaction because there is a market alternative
for good talent (rather than knowing that the best alternative is
working for H&R Block, Hallmark Cards, Applebees, McDonald's or
back to the farm, which has fostered a culture based on fear for one's
job security and having the right political connections over
self-initiative), or a wholesale change of entrenched management, it's
hard to envision a near term solution to the Sprint malaise with the
current lineup. I continue to be a fan of Dan Hesse and believe he is
capable, but turning around Sprint is more than a one or two person
job. If Dan Hesse is successful in turning around Sprint Nextel, then
he deserves to be enshrined with Lou Gerstner and Lee Iacocca in the annals of against-the-odds business turnarounds.

As for the rest of the industry, the big impacts for the future should
be, if I'm a vendor, equipment awards from winners of 700 MHz
spectrum. However, since the rollout requirements the 700 MHz spectrum
are so liberal, i.e., stretched out over several years starting next
year when the television broadcasters cease using the spectrum, any
major equipment awards and deployments are still well over a year out
and will be stretched for three to four years after that. Compared to
motivated initial deployments of other networks and technologies in
wireless industry past that took between eighteen months to three years
from the time of spectrum being awarded, I'd be concerned to be a
wireless equipment vendor to U.S. carriers from a revenue perspective
for the next few years.

So, where's the money? Will there ever again be a need for the same
level of wireless technical field installation nomads, living on the
road for almost a year at a time, doing construction work to build
greenfield wireless networks when establishing coverage in newly won
spectrum was like staking settling land on a new frontier, or will
these people be recorded in history in a documentary style that recalls
the men who built landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge, i.e., who
existed in a bygone era in the day when making $5 a day was considered
good pay? Being in the field building wireless networks wasn't
glamorous work and I wasn't one of them, but I know a lot of people who
nevertheless reminisce fondly on those times.

There's a lot of buzz out there on mobile social networking,
location services, mobile video, next generation bandwidth, quadruple
plays, ATC, mobile search, mobile advertising, open networks / Android,
wireless internet, etc. These options are so far, for the most part,
unrealized promises or "futures". Whatever the "it" ends up being, I
believe it will be something unique to wireless, rather than an
adaptation or migration of an existing service or capability from
another medium. "It" will also be something that has unique utility to
consumers that will primarily be useful to them when in a mobile state
and has limited value if it is substituted by a fixed version. "It"
will also be something that marketers will be anticipate, but that
which consumers will decide where the value resides. My vote for "it"
according to this criteria is for navigation and location services.

My stated goal is to publish one article a week. It turns out that
I'm achieving that goal, but on an asymmetric basis, i.e., a burst of
four or so articles every three or four weeks. I'll work on my level
loading going forward. I also intend on republishing some guest
articles from analysts I believe product unique, quality and non-widely
available analysis. I'm continuing to mull on the following topics
for future articles, besides the popular Sprint Nextel Watch series:
LTE deployment issues, 700 MHz post-auction analysis,
Motorola, and a suggested topic called Near Field Communications.

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